🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Confronts Fraud Trial Over Claims Madonna Figure Shed Blood A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception. Central Charges and Particulars The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year. They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters. Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children. Additional Allegations Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism. Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes. “As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli. Background and Connected Events Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje. News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets. The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.